Nanotechnology

News Releases

Public Release: 11-Dec-2015 Advanced Functional MaterialsDiagnostics with birefringence
ETH researchers led by Raffaele Mezzenga have developed a new diagnostic method. It is based on Birefringence, the ability of substances to change the polarization state of light. With this method, doctors around the world can easily, rapidly and reliably detect malaria, Ebola or HIV to name only a few.

Public Release: 10-Dec-2015 Applied Materials and InterfacesShaking the nanomaterials out
Nano implies small -- and that's great for use in medical devices, beauty products and smartphones -- but it's also a problem. All these tiny particles get into our water and are difficult to remove. Now, Michigan Tech researchers Yoke Khin Yap and Dongyang Zhang have a novel and very simple way to take the nanomaterials out.
National Science Foundation, Division of Materials Research

Public Release: 9-Dec-2015 Nature MaterialsPhysics of wrapping miniature droplets takes cue from street foods
Professor Joseph Paulsen researches soft condensed matter physics or, "the study of things that are squishy," he explains. This area of research focuses on substances that can be easily bent or deformed, such as liquids, foams, and gels. In this case, Paulsen and colleagues investigated the way very thin elastic sheets wrap droplets of water.

Public Release: 9-Dec-2015 Journal of Controlled ReleaseNanotech drug delivery shows promise for improved melanoma treatment
Researchers have developed a new three-drug delivery system for cancer treatment, especially metastatic melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer -- and shown that the system may have particular value with cancers like this that often spread through the lymphatic system. It may offer a novel therapeutic option for more effective cancer treatment.

Public Release: 9-Dec-2015 ACS NanoDetecting and identifying explosives with single test
A new test for detecting multiple explosives simultaneously has been developed by UCL scientists. The proof-of-concept sensor is designed to quickly identify and quantify five commonly used explosives in solution to help track toxic contamination in waste water and improve the safety of public spaces.
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Public Release: 8-Dec-2015 Nano ResearchResearchers develop nanoscale probes for ssDNA sustainability under UV radiation
A team of researchers from Lehigh University, the University of Central Florida and the National Institute of Standards and Technology set out to understand the stability of DNA as a carrier of genetic information against potential damage by UV radiation. They have reported their findings in a paper recently accepted for publication in Nano Research.
National Science Foundation

Public Release: 7-Dec-2015 ACS NanoSeeing viruses in a new light
If researchers can understand how viruses assemble, they may be able to design drugs that prevent viruses from forming in the first place. Unfortunately, how exactly viruses self-assemble has long remained a mystery because it happens very quickly and at such small length-scales. Now, there is a system to track nanometer-sized viruses at sub-millisecond time scales. The method is the first step towards tracking individual proteins and genomic molecules at high speeds as they assemble to create a virus.
National Science Foundation

Public Release: 7-Dec-2015 Nano LettersNanotube letters spell progress
Rice University researchers test the stiffness of individual nanotube junctions and find different characteristics based upon their 'letter' forms. Materials built with particular letters may be useful as building blocks in the construction of macroscale structures.
DOD/Air Force Office of Scientific Research, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 7-Dec-2015 Angewandte Chemie International EditionNew approaches for hybrid solar cells
Using a new procedure researchers at the Technical University of Munich and the Ludwig Maximillians University of Munich can now produce extremely thin and robust, yet highly porous semiconductor layers. A very promising material -- for small, lightweight, flexible solar cells, for example, or electrodes improving the performance of rechargeable batteries.
State of Bavaria, DFG, CeNS

Public Release: 7-Dec-2015 DissertationsThe world's tiniest temperature sensor is powered by radio waves
Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology have developed a very tiny wireless temperature sensor that is powered in a very special way: from the radio waves that are part of the sensor's wireless network. This means that the sensor needs not even a single wire, nor a battery that would have to be replaced. The arrival of such sensors is an important development on route towards smart buildings, for instance.
Technology Foundation STW

Public Release: 7-Dec-2015 Nano LettersSpin current on topological insulator detected electrically at room temperature
Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have for the first time reported the electrical detection of spin current on topological insulator surfaces at room temperature by employing a ferromagnetic detector. The findings have been published in the journal Nano Letters.
Swedish Research Council, Chalmers Area of Advance Nano, EU Marie Curie Career Integration Grant

Public Release: 4-Dec-2015 Journal of Clinical InvestigationGuided ultrasound plus nanoparticle chemotherapy cures tumors in mice
Thermal ablation with magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound surgery (MRgFUS) is a noninvasive technique for treating fibroids and cancer. New research from UC Davis shows that combining the technique with chemotherapy can allow complete destruction of tumors in mice.
National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 4-Dec-2015 Science AdvancesNanoscale drawbridges open path to color displays
A new method for building 'drawbridges' between metal nanoparticles could open new paths for electronics makers who wish to build full-color displays from opto-electric components. The research by plasmonics experts at Rice University is described in a new study this week in Science Advances.
National Science Foundation, Welch Foundation, American Chemical Society, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Rice University's Smalley-Curl Institute

Public Release: 3-Dec-2015 Nature CommunicationsPenn researchers make thinnest plates that can be picked up by hand
Despite being thousands of times thinner than a sheet of paper and hundreds of times thinner than household cling wrap or aluminum foil, newly developed corrugated plates of aluminum oxide spring back to their original shape after being bent and twisted.
National Science Foundation

Public Release: 3-Dec-2015 Light: Science and ApplicationsMeasuring nanoscale features with fractions of light
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers are seeing the light, but in an altogether different way. And how they are doing it just might be the semiconductor industry's ticket for extending its use of optical microscopes to measure computer chip features that are approaching 10 nanometers, tiny fractions of the wavelength of light. They report measurements of lines as thin as 16 nanometers wide on a SEMATECH-fabricated wafer were accurate to one nanometer.
NIST

Public Release: 3-Dec-2015 Advanced MaterialsScientists see the light on microsupercapacitors
Rice University researchers who pioneered the development of laser-induced graphene have configured their discovery into flexible, solid-state microsupercapacitors that rival the best available for energy storage and delivery.
Air Force Office of Scientific Research MURI, Chinese Scholarship Council

Public Release: 3-Dec-2015 Advanced Materials'Nanobombs' might deliver agents that alter gene activity in cancer stem cells
Researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center -- Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute have developed nanoparticles that swell and burst when exposed to near-infrared laser light. Such 'nanobombs' might overcome a biological barrier that has blocked development of agents that work by altering the activity -- the expression -- of genes in cancer cells. The agents might kill cancer cells outright or stall their growth.
American Cancer Society, Pelotonia Postdoctoral Fellowship

Public Release: 2-Dec-2015 Lab on a ChipA cheap, disposable device for diagnosing disease
The development of a reusable microfluidic device for sorting and manipulating cells and other micro/nano meter scale objects will make biomedical diagnosis of diseases cheaper and more convenient in regions where medical facilities are sparse or cost is prohibitive. Researchers at Penn State have recently filed a patent to develop such a device.
National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 2-Dec-2015 Journal of Chemical PhysicsExploring the limits for high-performance LEDs and solar cells
Förster resonant energy transfer is a radiationless transmission of energy that occurs on the nanometer scale. The process promotes energy rather than charge transfer, providing an alternative contactless pathway that avoids some of the losses caused by charge recombination at the interface. Researchers in Cyprus and in Greece have conducted an investigation on how various structural and electronic parameters affect FRET, and they present their work in this week's The Journal of Chemical Physics.

Public Release: 2-Dec-2015 Nature PhysicsQuantum computer made of standard semiconductor materials
Physicists at the Technical University of Munich, the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Stanford University have tracked down semiconductor nanostructure mechanisms that can result in the loss of stored information -- and halted the amnesia using an external magnetic field. The new nanostructures comprise common semiconductor materials compatible with standard manufacturing processes.
EU, DFG, ARO, AvH, TUM-IAS

Public Release: 2-Dec-2015 Nature CommunicationsSwimming devices could deliver drugs inside the body
A new method of guiding microscopic swimming devices has the potential to deliver drugs to a targeted location inside the body, according to new research published in Nature Communications today.
EPSRC